A Modern Robin Hood
by IWantYouInMyLife
Summary: Tony gets hurt. Peter can always tell. Rhodey is done being their babysitter. Done.


There had to be a limit to the times one could visit the MedBay without becoming a permanent feature of the place. With that being said, if there was one — and Rhodes was quite sure that there was, based on the looks he got from the nurses — then he had long passed it and waved it goodbye like a fucking lunatic.

Between his own time spent there as a patient, his frequent visits to drag Bruce out of the research wing by the collar, the countless days he had to physically push Peter into the elevator and over to the stretchers, and, of course, Tony's particular brand of recklessness, Rhodes was pretty sure he had come to a point where he perpetually smelled like their lime-scented cleaning products. It was useless to deny it any more; It was just the sad truth.

The problem, Rhodes realized, was that he surrounded himself with people who had no notions of self-preservation, and, thus, somehow, as the only normal adult around, the responsibility of keeping them all alive and in one piece, felt to him. No, scratch that. The actual problem was that none of them cooperated with him. In fact, the fuckers actively worked their buts off to make his thankless job as tricky as it could be.

A whole bunch of kids — that's what they were.

Create new, jaw-dropping technology under pressure and overnight? Sure. Amass Ph.D.'s like they were free candy? Absolutely. Put themselves in front of every fucking possible danger in order to save a child, a city, a country, the world, the whole damn universe? Why not?

Now, take care of themselves? Act like responsible adults? Ask for help? Admit they were over their heads? Remember to eat, drink, and sleep? Nah, why would they, right? That was just the sort of bullshit the '_Science Bros_' — and seriously, fuck that title — didn't need to concern themselves with.

And so, despite the odds and Rhodes better sense, somewhere along the years, he assumed the role of the nagging mother where the boys were concerned — trying this best to make sure they were routinely fed, watered, and exposed to a little sunlight. In theory, it sounded like the sort of thing they should be grateful for — as it did keep them, you know, breathing and such — and yet, weirdly enough, they never really were. Funny, that.

Which was how Rhodes found himself, once again, at the MedBay.

Just another Tuesday on the Avengers Compound.

Almost all of them were on room 3, the larger one available, sitting on several different stretchers and being treated by four doctors at once — with various different levels of success. The team had just returned from another round of fight against the Doombots, and despite it being a relatively easy fight, no one had escaped unscathed, so they moved straight to the MedBay upon arrival, knowing it was best to get the exams done and over with as soon as possible.

No one told Tony that, though. No, of course not. The genius had lagged behind, almost dragging his feet in a ridiculous attempt at making himself scarce, and only Rhodes firm grip and decades of training kept the man from pulling the vanishing act. And so, reluctantly, Tony sat his ass down on a bed and allowed the doctor to check his vitals, grumbling about everything and anything in the meanwhile and overall playing his role of a nuisance of the highest degree.

When the time came to move to a physical check, however, Tony instantly backtracked and started to spew all kinds of excuses to leave; claiming, as always, that the suit protected him and that '_of course I'm fine, greedy fingers, who do you think I am? Get your hands off me._'

Trying to get the man to listen to sense was almost like trying to move a mountain — only the mountain speaks, whines, and makes a run for it far more often than not.

"For the love of God, Tony." Rhodes rolled his eyes, keeping his arm still as Amelia — yes, he was on a first name basis with the doctors — cleaned and dressed his wounds. "Just shut the fuck up, man. The quicker you let him check that you're alright, the quicker we can get the hell out of here."

Clint snorted from all the way across the room. "Speak for yourself. As soon as I'm done, I'm getting the fuck out of this place. I need a shower — or six. Ain't no one waiting for princess Stark to quit his whining."

"It's not whining, Legolas. I said I'm fine," Tony rebutted. "Although I _am_ flattered — I would make quite the cute princess, wouldn't I?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure you've been wearing that same shirt for the past three days," Rhodes said, pointing with his chin to the greasy, threadbare shirt. "Not so much of a princess material, if you ask me."

"You wound me."

"Not yet, I haven't."

"So aggressive, platypus," Tony gasped dramatically, clenching his chest with his left hand. "I would've thought the bots had given you a sufficient outlet to your anger management issues."

Rhodes rolled his eyes. "I don't have anger management issues."

"That's what they all say, honeybun. That's what they all say."

Thor tilted his head in confusion. "Who is 'they,' my friends? I do not follow."

Natasha, who had already been discharged and was waiting for the others, perched at the end of Thor's bed, patted his knee. "There's no 'they,' big guy. Ignore Tony, it's what we all try to do," she said before turning to face Tony. "Stop being such a baby. You are too old to be resisting medical care — it's almost like Pet—"

FRIDAY interrupted her midsentence. "Boss, Peter has just arrived from school. I've taken the liberty of informing him of your location. He's currently moving to the elevator."

"What?" Tony blanched, jumping in place. "Why would you do that?! No! No, no, no. Tell him I'm all good here, and I'll be up in a minute." As he spoke, Tony was already moving to push David away from him, glaring at the doctor as though it was his personal fault that Peter found out he was in the MedBay.

"I've informed Peter of your message, sir," FRIDAY responded. "He's still on route. Swearing quite profusely, too."

"Shit, shit," Tony cursed.

"Tony, if you're not hurt, then why the big fuss?" Rhodes asked, getting more suspicious by the second as his best-friend continued to act guilty as shit.

"You don't know Peter. The kid is like a magician or shit — I don't know how he does it, Rhodey. It's like he knows," Tony whined, making no sense whatsoever, and Rhodes is about to demand an explanation when the doors opened, and Peter walked right in, eyes instantly scanning the room before landing on Tony.

"You're hurt," the kid said straight away, without a word of greeting, a single question beforehand, or another blink. There was a certainty in his voice, one that spoke of experience and knowledge.

"Petey, baby," Tony called happily, plastering a smile on his face and ignoring the teenager pointed look. "I'm—"

Peter made his way to Tony, ignoring everyone else in the room. "No, you're not. Quit deflecting and raise your arms," he said softly, speaking over Tony's attempt to deny his pain. Peter's tone was calm and even, and he didn't look concerned, but there was an underline of steel in his voice, and it's evident that his words are not a request.

The flash of panic on Tony's eyes was almost enough to get Rhodes to crack a smile. Shit, the kid was good.

"I have no idea what you can possibly mean, kid. I'm good, amazing — great, even. How was your day at school?" Tony rambled, doing that thing where he talked a lot without saying a single relevant word, but even as he spoke, he complied to the order, raising his arms over his head and allowing Peter to remove the dirty Metallica shirt.

And sure enough, there, on Tony's right side, near his waist, was a big gash, covered by drying blood. How the kid knew with five seconds of being in the room, however, was a question Rhodes would like the answer to. If nothing else, he would appreciate the chance to learn the ability — God knows Tony wasn't one to share his wounds with anybody.

"School was cool. I got a B+ on my Spanish test, so I'm considering it a victory," Peter said casually, throwing the shirt sideways. He turned to look at David from over his shoulder. "Could I get a kit, please? He's gonna need stitches for this, I think."

David seemed appropriately surprised. "Sir, I can—"

"Yeah, no," Tony said, shaking his head. "I'm not letting you touch me. Give the stuff to the kid.

"But he's—"

"I'm pretty good with a needle, actually," Peter insisted, fixing David with a look that made the man scramble to grab the kit. "Lighter hands and all that."

Rhodes cannot emnot/em ask. "Lighter hands?"

"Hmm," Peter hummed in agreement, grabbing the pair of gloves David offered him and putting it on with what looked to be far too much practice. "Comes with the heightened senses, I guess. It's easier for me to apply more or less pressure when I want to." He looked up, locking eyes with Rhodes for a moment, raising a brow. "He didn't tell you he was hurt?"

Tony bristled behind Peter's back. "Hey! I can—"

"To be fair, we asked," Rhodes said with a sigh. "Tony told us he was fine... Repeatedly."

Peter didn't seem surprised. If anything, the kid looked resigned and a touch amused by the entire situation. "Yeah, he does that," he agreed, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Like a child, really."

"Petey, that's no way of talking about your dear mentor," Tony grumbled, tugging at Peter's shirt to get the kid's attention. "And quit chit-chatting, kid. You've made me strip in this cold ass room, get to the sewing-me-shut part, will you?"

Peter's smile widened. "Right, not like a child at all, hun?"

"Shut up, Underoos. Get on with it."

"Calm your horses, old man," Peter said, pulling a stool closer with only his foot, not even looking in its direction as he did so, dropping his weight onto the stool as soon as it touched the back of his legs. "If you wanted my hands on your body so damn badly, you only had to ask. All this fanfare is unnecessary, Mr. Stark."

Tony shifted in place, coming near the edge of the bed to get closer to Peter. "You know, it doesn't count as respect if you sass the hell out of me and then try to address me properly, kid. That's not how this works," he said, although Rhodes can tell he's biting back a smile as well. "How did you know, this time?"

"You were leaning all your weight on your left side." Peter shrugged. "It was pretty obvious."

The thing was: Tony's almost too good at hiding his true emotions from others — a byproduct of decades of continually living with cameras and spotlights shoved into his face — but Rhodes knew him. He met Tony when he was still an awkward teenager who was far too smart for his own good, struggling to find his footing at MIT among the older students; and so, no matter how many layers of masks Tony insisted on donning on, Rhodes could still see his tells. The tiny flickers of expressions that went across his face so quickly, Rhodes had to be paying sharp attention to notice.

And there it was, the glimmer of fondness on Tony's eyes that betrayed his love for the kid. In comparison to the usual moments Tony had a mask on, that one was almost too easy to crack, and it's painfully obvious that Peter had his best friend wrapped around his little fingers, completely enwrapped in that kid's every sentence.

"I was not," Tony grumbled, trying and doing a poor job at sounding put off. "I still maintain that you have some weird freaky spider mojo I don't know about."

"Sure, whatever gets you to sleep soundly at night. Now, let's see it," Peter mumbled to himself, inspecting the gash on Tony's stomach, pulling the skin taut and prodding the wound with expert fingers. "Damn, old man, that bot got you good, hun?"

"For a doctor, you sure have a lot of opinions, Underoos."

"Not a doctor, remember?" Peter reminded, opening a packet of sterilizing alcohol wipes to clean the wound. "If you wanted the treatment sans the impertinent comments, you'd have accepted the help of the actual doctor over there, who is getting paid to put you back together."

Tony lied down without needing to be asked, eyes glued to the teenager in front of him. "Well, shit, kid, between me and that smart-mouthed mercenary, with the amount of damage control you've been doing these days, you might as well get a degree from somewhere," he said smartly. "I'm sure I can—"

"Sure. I'm sure Stanford will hand me a diploma if only I ask them nicely for it," Peter sassed, shaking his head fondly as he cleaned Tony stomach with the wipes.

"Hey," Tony called, playfully batting Peter's hands away. "Keep those greedy hands on the place where I need stitches. This is no excuse to cop a feel, young man."

Peter grimaced. "Yikes. I would never."

"_Excuse me_? What's that supposed to mean?" Tony demanded, making a move to sit up, only to have Peter's hand shove him back down unceremoniously.

"You're, like, a hundred years old or something," he explained, unpuzzled. He grabbed a small needle and started to thread it, eyes focused on the task. "I'm fifteen — I can date Shawn Mendes, Sophie Turner, or who knows, Zendaya. She's cute."

Tony gasped. "They are all twenty-something, aren't they? That's too old for you!" He proclaimed, ignoring the tiny fact that the kid wouldn't, in fact, be dating any of those people in real life; choosing, instead, to turn to Rhodes and ask: "Tell him that he's way too young to be dating people who are not fourteen. Actually, no. Tell him that he's too young to date. Period. Tell him."

Rhodes could see the amused smile on Peter's face as the kid grabbed a needle driver, so he decided to have a little fun. "I remember when you were fifteen, you dated some pretty older people—," he started, giving Tony a pointed look. He knew what — or better, who — Rhodes was talking about.

"Oi! We don't talk about that! Not ever — especially not in front of the kid!" Tony cried out, hurrying to speak (read: scream) over Rhodes.

"No, wait! Who?" Peter asked, swirling around in his stool to face Rhodes. "I want to know about Tony's sugar daddy!"

Tony gasped. "What?! Kid, what the fuck? How do you know about sugar daddies?" His expression of befuddlement was priceless, his eyes nearly jumping off their sockets, and Rhodes couldn't hold back the chuckles that fell from his lips.

God, that kid.

"I'm fifteen, Tony, not an infant," Peter shrugged. "I go to a fancy school for geniuses; people talk."

"Well, get them to stop talking. You're just a kid — you have no business knowing about shit like that, Christ. Sugar Daddy," Tony exhaled, breathing the word out like it's a curse. "What made you think I would need one, anyway? I wasn't born poor, you know. Stark heir and all that crap."

"Jeez, Mr. Stark, I don't know. I try not to think about the kinky stuff they print about you in the papers."

"Peter! What the hell? None of it is true!

Rhodes raised a finger. "To be completely honest, that one time—"

"Shut the fuck up, Rhodey!" Tony yelled, his cheeks turning a hilarious shade of red. "You're a terrible friend, for fuck's sake."

"Don't worry, Mr. Stark. No one is judging you here," Peter said with an earnest face.

"No one is jud— Kid, stop, there's nothing to judge, okay? Nothing. Niente. Nada. Rhodey hit his head too often inside that old suit of his and doesn't know what he's talking about — that's it."

"Sure, man," Rhodes snorted. "_That's_ it. It wasn't that the paparazzi caught you with your face trapped in between that woman's ass—"

"RHODEY!" Tony snapped, and Peter cracked up, dropping his head on Tony's stretcher and laughing so hard his breath hitched a few times. "Quit it, already. It's not that funny, Parker."

Peter wiped his tears on his shoulder, still getting his breathing under control. "No, not. It's great — I'll want that whole story later, 'kay? You're not escaping without a full tale." He paused for a minute and then went back to Tony's injury. "Can I start?" He asked, tapping on Tony's thigh to call his attention.

Tony groaned dramatically. "Knock yourself out, you heathen. I know how much pleasure you take from my pain."

Peter barked a surprised laugh. "You got me. Can't hide anything from you, old man," he mocked, pressing on the skin with one hand and moving the needle driver with the other, ready to start.

"Hold on!" David called, waving his arms to draw their attention. "Mr. Stark needs anesthesia first. Let me—"

"Nah," Peter dismissed, not even bothering to raise his head or interrupt his process. "Tony is a closeted masochist. Let him have this; otherwise, he'll cry."

And it's incredible, because Clint was barely controlling his laughter from across the room, and even Natasha looked to be on the verge of cracking up a smile at Peter's words, and yet, despite the noises and presences, Peter and Tony remained encased inside their own little bubble, talking and seeing only each other.

It was something they did more often than not — getting lost into their own private world — and still, it tugged at something inside Rhodes' chest to see his best friend acting so fucking relaxed with someone who was not an Artificial Intelligence of his own creation.

"Ha ha ha. You are so fucking funny, Parker. Honestly, is a wonder Comedy Central hasn't snatched you up for a stand-up show with that wit and brilliance you so clearly have," Tony dead-panned, moving slightly to pinch Peter's arm.

The kid didn't even flinch, but he did pin Tony down with a glare for his daring. "Oi, don't pinch the guy sewing you up."

"Don't be a smartass," Tony said before turning back to David, who looked torn between unimpressed and a tiny bit amused at their antics. "Kid's right, though, I don't need anything — not really fond of stuff messing with my system. Don't worry; I've got a high pain tolerance."

"Don't say that proudly, like it's a skill or something. You take unnecessary risks every time you are out there, Tony," Peter said, his voice severe and in sharp contrast to his earlier light tone. "Between you and Wade, I'm gonna have a heart attack one of these days."

"I'm trusting you to watch my back, kid," Tony responded, and it's a concession, a disclosure of sentiments, a soft-spoken admission of affection and, more importantly for Tony, expectation. He was expressing, quite clearly, in between the lines, that he had full confidence that Peter would be there for him, no matter what — which is the sort of heart-to-heart the engineer never had with anyone else, not even Rhodes.

Peter seemed to know, too. He raised his head, and their eyes met, and the silence stretched for a full heavy minute before Peter went back to his task. "Good," Peter finally said, his voice almost too low for Rhodes to hear. "I've got you, Tony. I've got your back."

In response, Tony beamed at him — all perfectly straight, white teeth and dimples, completely open and filled with the sort of love only Peter managed to evoke in him. "I know you do, kid," was all he said.

And it was enough for Peter, 'cause even from where Rhodes was sitting, poor angle and all, he could still see the huge smile the kid was trying to hide as he carried on stitching Tony's wound.

A second later, though, they were back at it — sentimental moment forgotten as Peter went right back to teasing the older man.

"Shut up, Tony. You're distracting me."

"I _have_ been told my presence can be very distracting," Tony agreed, like an idiot.

Peter snorted. "Oh, bite me."

"Don't tempt me, kiddo. I just might."

"That would qualify as abuse; I'm pretty certain."

"So sue me," Tony shrugged, unconcerned as ever by the possible lawsuit.

Peter nodded, closing the knot. "I am trying to save some money for a PlayStation…"

"You are? Kid. Why didn't you say so, I could buy you a PlayStation," Tony protested, shifting slightly so the kid could wrap the suture. "FRIDAY, get me—"

"No! Delay that, FRIDAY!" Peter yelled over his mentor. "I do _not_ need you to buy me a PlayStation, Tony, stop that. I can very well sue you like an adult and use your money to buy one myself. _God_, it's like you don't want me to grow up and become independent."

Rhodes couldn't help but gasp when Tony reached out to ruffle Peter's curls, fondly messing with the kid's hair. "That's my boy," he said, allowing the contact to linger when Peter leaned into the touch, nuzzling into Tony's palm. "Practically a modern Robin Hood."

At those words, Peter turned and licked Tony's entire hand, only laughing when the man yelped and withdrew his arm from the kid's vicinity.

"What the fuck?" Tony cried, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

"Serves you right," Peter teased, throwing his mentor's shirt at him and getting up from his stool. "Modern Robin Hood. Whatever."

"Yeah, yeah. See if I compare you to a good guy again, Parker. From now on, it's only idiots and douchebags for you, kiddo."

"Nice. Please start with Iron Man, will you?"

"Wait," Rhodes couldn't help but ask, "is he an idiot or a douchebag?"

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but Peter moved faster, covering Tony's mouth with his hand and speaking over the noises of protest coming from the engineer.

"Why, Rhodey, how nice of you to ask," he said, quite angelically, all smile and soft eyes, and, boy, Rhodes could see the reason Tony was such a sucker for that kid. "Both, of course."

Oh.

_Oh_.

Never mind.


End file.
